


Agony Uncle Extraordinaire

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: Smart People [11]
Category: Primeval
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-04
Updated: 2013-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-10 13:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3291620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stephen is not equipped to give relationship advice, okay?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Agony Uncle Extraordinaire

**Author's Note:**

> For goldarrow, on (or rather, slightly after!) the occasion of her birthday, with hope that she enjoys it. *g* Set in mine and Luka's university AU; if you haven’t come across it before, all you need to know is that – in some parallel universe – everyone worked or studied at CMU!

            “What do you mean, you’ve left Professor Cutter to write a grant on his own?” Becker said blankly, stirring his coffee with one of those little plastic wands. “I thought he was incapable of deadlines?”

 

            Stephen shrugged, and put on his best impassive face. It had some way to go to reach the heights of Becker’s, which could look like solidified plasticine if he made an effort. “He said he’d do it. It’s good for him.”

 

            He fed the coffee machine some small change, thumped it in exactly the right place, and punched in his order. CMU’s coffee was terrible, but it was cheap enough, and the cafeteria had the bonus of being almost silent at this time of day – a Friday evening. There were only a few harassed post-grads and various staff members around, though most of the staff who were still in the building were tied up in a late meeting with Lester. Stephen had caught Lorraine Wickes muttering snatches of Shakespeare’s _Henry the Fifth_ under her breath whilst flicking through budget outlines earlier, so presumed it was going to be a terrible one, and Lester would be a wanker for the rest of next week if Ryan didn’t manage to get him into a better mood over the weekend.  
  
            “Is he actually going to do it?” Becker demanded, stretching out long legs. Stephen took a moment to notice that he was a handsome man, if not Stephen’s type (Stephen ran to grouchy blond professors with Scottish accents and crinkly-eyed smiles, not dark, repressed librarians with wounded brown eyes and unexplained eyebrow scars).

 

            “God knows,” Stephen said, bringing his cup of coffee over to Becker’s corner table. Neither he nor Becker was naturally particularly sociable, and they had almost nothing in common, but Stephen liked his company all right, and there wasn’t another member of staff in the cafeteria that he recognised.

 

            Becker raised one dark eyebrow – the eyebrow with the scar through it. “You’ve already written a copy, haven’t you?”  


            Stephen smirked, and hid it in his coffee.

 

            Becker laughed, which gave Stephen a genuine shock. “Sneaky, Hart.”

 

            “You’re in a good mood,” Stephen remarked.

 

            Becker shrugged with one shoulder and gave a twisted smile, staring down at his feet, but even Stephen, who made no claims to being good at reading emotional signals, could tell he was happy. Becker ran a hand through his hair, causing it to fall elegantly over his forehead. “Just had a good day, that’s all.”

 

            Stephen spent very little time outside the Earth Sciences building at CMU, unless forcibly dragged by Sarah Page or summoned by Tom Ryan. He therefore could not speak to Dave Owen’s movements or draw any conclusions about their relationship to Becker’s unnaturally good mood. He tilted his head to one side, opened his mouth and then closed it again in favour of just smiling.

 

            “What?” Becker said, no doubt reading something terrible into what he’d just done, since Becker was as skittish as a day-old fawn sometimes.

 

            “It’s nice to see you looking less…” Stephen waved a hand vaguely and wished he didn’t have to think of tactful words for what he meant, which was that everybody liked Dave, and Dave’s happiness was dependent on Becker’s own, and therefore Becker being happier meant Dave was practically mellow. Becker was nice, of course, and Stephen appreciated him for himself, but when Dave wasn’t intentionally drawing on years of soldierly repression he tended to broadcast what he was feeling. He could brighten or lower the feeling of a room just by existing, and lately there’d been a lot more brightening of rooms. Their entire friend group was the better for it, and Stephen had gained the distinct impression from Ryan that – after several months of withholding judgement – he had decided to like his friend’s boyfriend.

 

            Becker’s whole face twitched, part scepticism, part annoyance, part sheepishness. He ran a hand up the back of his neck, through his hair, and shrugged as he let his hand fall back to his lap. “I like it here,” he said evenly, face more carefully composed.

 

            “It’s a good place,” Stephen said, seizing with relief on a sufficiently euphemistic way of saying what he thought.

 

            Becker nodded, and they both sat at ease for a while. A postgrad had fallen asleep on a table in the corner, and started to snore. Stephen caught Becker’s eye, and they silently agreed to ignore the poor kid, who didn’t look more than twenty-one and had noticeable dark circles, imperfectly hidden with concealer. She needed her sleep more than everyone else needed to stop hearing her snore like a grampus.

 

            The cafeteria door swung open and shut loudly, causing the postgrad to sit bolt upright and look blearily around the room. Both Becker and Stephen stared at the man who entered the cafeteria. If Stephen was hardly ever seen outside the Earth Sciences building, then Niall Richards was notorious for sticking firmly to Engineering, where they were used to him. He was, Stephen freely acknowledged, yet another highly attractive man on CMU staff, but he was also sodding terrifying. It was something about the automatic glower, dislike of social occasions that might have demystified him, and the tendency to lurk in corners with a look that Sarah was wont to refer to as ‘resting murder-face’. Ryan liked him, Stephen knew, and Lorraine was patient with him, but Ryan also had an inexplicable ability to reduce Richards to sulky compliance, and Lorraine could guilt Satan himself into displaying acceptable behaviour.

 

            “What’s he doing here?” Stephen said, as quietly as possible. Those unearthly green eyes, combined with the flat, serious line of Richards’ mouth, generally suggested that he could hear what you were saying from the other side of campus, didn’t like it, and proposed to dissect you for it. Stephen was taking no chances.

 

            Becker, who had recovered admirably from his surprise, shrugged and put his feet up on an unoccupied chair. “Looking for coffee, like you or me? Or maybe he’s got bored of that den of his in the bottom of Engineering.”

 

            Stephen snorted into his coffee. “Listen, Becker, I’ve been at this university since Richards arrived five years ago, and I’ll tell you one thing – I’ve never seen him socialise voluntarily.”

 

            “Jenny Lewis,” Becker said cryptically.

 

            “What?”

 

            “According to Dave, he has a massive thing for Jenny Lewis,” Becker elaborated, and grinned at Stephen, who was having difficulty scraping his jaw off the floor. “Stands to reason he might want to get out of the den and exist in places where she might be.”

 

            Stephen gave up on speech and ran a hand through his spiky dark hair, shaking his head vaguely. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, and stared at the plastic of the table.

 

            “I’ve seen Dave interrogate him about it,” Becker said, with the confidence of one who knows he is no longer the most embarrassingly pathetic-for-love person in the room. “He blushes and shuffles his feet. It’s funny. Oh, watch out, incoming…”

 

            Stephen darted a glance up through his eyebrows and saw that, despite the note of surprise in Becker’s voice, Niall was indeed coming this way, his tall, broad-shouldered figure cutting a swathe through the cafeteria and drawing everyone’s eyes. He was not very good at being inconspicuous; whenever he tried, he tended to skulk and attract twice the attention that he would have done otherwise.

 

            “Evening,” he said, arriving at the table, possessing himself of a chair, and plonking himself down in it.

 

            Temporarily speechless, Stephen contented himself with a nod.

 

            “Evening,” Becker said, in tones that would have passed for neutral in any other human being, but – since Becker was Becker and generally behaved with all the cheeriness of a small, moist patch of fog – which sounded positively ebullient. Stephen was pleased to see that Niall darted him a millisecond’s confused, suspicious glance, evidently equally puzzled by Becker’s cheeriness.

 

            Niall emptied two packets of sugar into his coffee, which looked to Stephen like tar, and stirred it with unnecessary viciousness.

 

            “Research not going to plan?” Becker said, with a kind of awkward sympathy. “Marking? Undergraduates?”

 

            Niall grunted, which Stephen took as an indication to shut up. He tried to communicate this to Becker solely via use of eyebrows, without a great deal of success.

 

            “…Miss Lewis?”

 

            Stephen closed his eyes and prayed for a swift death.

 

            Niall grunted again. “Just because you’re dating your Mister Perfect doesn’t mean you can go on about other people’s…” He flailed for words, in a quiet, emotionally constipated sort of way. Becker, who had flushed red to the ears when Niall made reference to ‘Mister Perfect’, fell silent.

 

            “Problems,” Stephen’s treacherous mouth supplied without his brain’s consent.

 

            “Don’t want any bullshit from you either, Hart,” Niall mumbled, and stirred his coffee aggressively. “If Jen likes policemen, that’s her business.”

 

            Stephen blinked. “Um.”

 

            “Detective Sergeant Quinn,” Niall elaborated grumpily.

 

            Stephen looked at Becker.

 

            “The policeman who led the investigation when Lorraine was getting harassed,” Becker explained, now looking just as puzzled as Stephen. “But what –”

 

            “He flirts with Jenny,” Niall muttered, getting more Yorkshire by the second. “He’s very…”

 

            Stephen waited to hear the end of that sentence, and didn’t get it; Niall scowled and buried his face in his coffee instead.

 

            There was a long and awkward silence.

 

            “Doesn’t matter,” Niall said, with a grumpy shrug. “She likes who she likes.” Pause. “I just think he’s a wanker.”

 

            Stephen was torn between trying to be sympathetic and not wanting to get stabbed. He’d met Detective Sergeant Quinn, now he thought of it, a tall and lanky man with disastrous ginger hair and a mockney sense of humour that would drive a more patient person than Niall Richards to distraction – and Niall Richards wasn’t terribly patient. He was also, Stephen was beginning to realise, profoundly jealous. “Does she… know you like her?”

 

            Niall didn’t react.

 

            “I mean, have you said so?” Stephen asked, wishing fervently for Sarah, who understood relationships far better than either him or Becker, who now looked as if they had steered into unfamiliar territory.

 

            “We’re friends,” Niall said reluctantly, shifting in his chair. “We went out once, just before all the stuff with Dr Wickes getting poisoned, I – thought it went well?” There was a note of doubt in his voice as he looked at Stephen, and Stephen had no bloody idea how to address that, so he just made a vague encouraging noise which seemed to go down fine. Niall looked away. “But she’s always busy, some fucker is always being a moron and making her life difficult, and I didn’t want to… you know…” He waved one hand inarticulately.

 

            “We don’t know,” Becker said to the toes of his shoes. “That’s why we’re asking you.”

 

            Niall looked pained. “Make a nuisance of myself.” He buried his face in his coffee. “And then fucking _Quinn_ turned up, and he’s matey with everyone and it’s fucking annoying, and he doesn’t worry about bothering Jen, he just...” Niall glared at the table fit to put a hole in it, then shrugged crossly again and repeated: “Doesn’t matter. ’S up to Jen.”

 

            Stephen stared desperately at Becker. He’d never heard Niall Richards say so much in one go, and he had certainly never expected to be on the receiving end of his confidences.

 

            Becker raised his hands and mouthed _I have no fucking idea_ , which was really helpful, wasn’t it.

 

            Stephen made a desperate stab in the direction of a solution. “Are you still talking to her?”

 

            “Yeah,” Niall said, sounding profoundly offended by the very question.

 

            Stephen commended his soul to any deity that could find it. “Why not ask her out again?”

 

            “It’ll be awkward if she says no,” Niall mumbled, turning pink about the ears. Stephen observed this phenomenon with fascination.

 

             “Only if you let it be,” Stephen said firmly, trying to believe it. “Why are you asking me, anyway?”

 

            “You’re… happy,” Niall said, with a funny sort of gesture that seemed to be intended to encompass the entirety of Stephen’s relationship with Nick Cutter. Becker’s face went through a variety of contortions Stephen couldn’t even begin to read.

 

            Stephen boggled for a few moments, and then managed to say rather faintly: “I’m gay. And I think everyone knows what happened the _one time_ I slept with a woman.”

 

            Becker winced and Niall hissed at the mention of Helen Cutter. “Sorry, mate,” Niall said, sounding genuinely apologetic. “Didn’t realise.”

 

            “It’s fine,” Stephen said awkwardly, and ran both hands through his hair. Then he consigned all caution to the winds and leant forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “Ask her out, Niall. She won’t go out with you if you don’t say you’re still interested. For all she knows, you decided you just want to be friends with her. And then she really will go out with Quinn. I mean, worse things could happen, but – if you guys get on –”

 

            Stephen ran out of useful things to say or ways to articulate them, and stared hopelessly at Niall. “Know what I mean?” he said at last. “It’s – missing out on someone who might – um –”

 

            The ensuing pause hung in the air like a falling pane of glass.

 

            “Just don’t,” Stephen said eventually. “I mean, don’t push your luck, yeah? But don’t… give up before you even tried.”

 

            Niall nodded as if this made any kind of fucking sense at all, then looked down at his coffee – still steaming – and knocked it back in one go. He stood in a business-like fashion and nodded at Stephen and Becker. “Thanks. Evening.” He binned the coffee cup and marched out.

 

            Stephen and Becker watched him go, slack-jawed.

 

            “What just happened?” Stephen said, when the cafeteria door had stopped swinging in Niall’s wake.

 

            “Did you just give Niall Richards… relationship advice?” Becker demanded, sounding equally pole-axed, and looking faintly traumatised. “I mean, I always thought he was all right, bit crazy but all right, and when he asked Jenny out Dave and I were happy for him, but – dating advice? I mean…” He shook his head, clearly feeling that Niall Richards asking for help in understanding women was a bridge too far.

 

            Stephen looked at him, at a loss. “Can we pretend this never happened?”

 

            Becker caught his eye, and then nodded and tapped his coffee cup against Stephen’s. “I’ll drink to that.”


End file.
